A fellow home schooling mom showed me her family’s latest project the other day. She proudly took me to her hall and showed me a piece of paper as long as the hallway, taped to the wall. As I got closer I could see that it was a timeline. I asked her to tell me about it.
She explained that the way most history curricula are set up, you get a specific period in a specific area, for example Columbus’ exploration of the New World. Her complaint was that while her children were learning what happened in the New World in 1492, it might be years before they learned what was happening in Asia during that same period. Truth be known, she continued, that they might never come across what was happening in Asia during that time period.
She decided that the timeline would allow her children to get a picture of what was happening in different parts of the world during the same time period. Consider this, in a 20 year period, around the world, the following events occurred. The East India Tea Company was formed, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, Jamestown was founded, slave ships arrived in the New World from Africa, Galileo saw the moons of Jupiter through his telescope, and the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock, and the King James version of the Bible was created.
What an incredible number of events in such a short period of time! And those events do not include what was going on in Asia, Australia, or most of Africa during that time period. I will tell you, I am very tempted to add this idea to out regular homeschool curriculum lessons. I am thinking, let's put one of these timelines up in my hallway too!
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